The Offbeat Federal Holiday
Today is Martin Luther King Day.
It's a federal holiday but yet in many places it does not feel like a holiday.
It's now 21 years since MLK Day was declared a legal holiday. But in many ways the day is till getting its footing as a time of national commemoration.
Many business leaders questions say most big companies are honoring the King holiday by making it a paid holiday for their workers. But some transit agencies are saying that there are still too many people commuting to work on Dr. King's holiday for them to treat it like most other holidays (New York Times).
Maybe I'm making too much of this in an era where teh emanings of Memorial Day, and Labor Day have been lost. And to too many July Fourth is just a long weekend.
But as one who likes to look back at where we have been as a nation and who thinks that we have lost a lot of what used to be good about our communities and nation (urban sprawl, mass culture, pro sports as examples), I prfer to look aheah to a time with this holiday is finally treated as the day it should be - remembering Dr. King, remembering all less famous those worked as did Dr. King for equality, and to honor those universal principles Dr. King's legacy has becoem associated with: diversity and not just tolerance but acceptance.
When we all accept MLK Day we all finally would have accepted something about ourselves asd Americans and human beings.
It's a federal holiday but yet in many places it does not feel like a holiday.
It's now 21 years since MLK Day was declared a legal holiday. But in many ways the day is till getting its footing as a time of national commemoration.
Many business leaders questions say most big companies are honoring the King holiday by making it a paid holiday for their workers. But some transit agencies are saying that there are still too many people commuting to work on Dr. King's holiday for them to treat it like most other holidays (New York Times).
Maybe I'm making too much of this in an era where teh emanings of Memorial Day, and Labor Day have been lost. And to too many July Fourth is just a long weekend.
But as one who likes to look back at where we have been as a nation and who thinks that we have lost a lot of what used to be good about our communities and nation (urban sprawl, mass culture, pro sports as examples), I prfer to look aheah to a time with this holiday is finally treated as the day it should be - remembering Dr. King, remembering all less famous those worked as did Dr. King for equality, and to honor those universal principles Dr. King's legacy has becoem associated with: diversity and not just tolerance but acceptance.
When we all accept MLK Day we all finally would have accepted something about ourselves asd Americans and human beings.
posted by eric model | 6:07 AM
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